Politics, as defined by Ambrose Bierce, is "a strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles, the conduct of public affairs for private advantage." Indeed, the presidential campaign has begun to look like a choice between the payers and the takers, with no middle ground and advantage resting with the takers.

By some estimates, the takers — public employees and recipients of government social-insurance benefits — now number more than half the country's 308 million inhabitants. This imbalance worsens as the labor-force participation rate falls, with jobs harder to find and government benefits easier to obtain.

Confirming the trend, the teacher strike in Chicago is less an educational than a nutritional problem, as 80 percent of the city's students get free breakfast and lunch from their schools, their homes failing to feed them — and then 40 percent drop out of high school, confident the country will keep providing for them.

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